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    Katori Hall Wins Drama Pulitzer for ‘The Hot Wing King’

    The play, which had its run cut short because of the pandemic, centers on a kitchen in Memphis, where a man is trying to concoct award-winning chicken wings.Katori Hall, who has told stirring stories about Black life in America both onstage and onscreen, has won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for “The Hot Wing King,” a family dramedy that centers on a man’s quest to make award-winning chicken wings while personal conflict swirls around him.The Off Broadway play — produced last year by the Pershing Square Signature Center, where it had a truncated run — drew praise for challenging conventional conceptions of Black masculinity and fatherhood.Its main character, Cordell, has recently moved into a home in Memphis with his lover, Dwayne, whom Cordell enlists to help him make his submission to the annual “Hot Wang Festival.” Things get complicated when Dwayne wants to take in his 16-year-old nephew, whose mother died while being restrained by the police — a tragedy for which Dwayne blames himself.In the awards announcements on Friday, the Pulitzer board called the play a “funny, deeply felt consideration of Black masculinity and how it is perceived, filtered through the experiences of a loving gay couple and their extended family as they prepare for a culinary competition.”Hall, 40, the author of the Olivier Award-winning “The Mountaintop,” wrote a play that was full of frenetic action (stirring pots, dismembering chickens, spicing sauces), emotional exchanges and sitcom-style ribbing.She also co-wrote the book for “Tina: The Tina Turner Musical,” which is nominated for numerous Tony Awards (including best musical and best book of a musical), and created the Starz drama “P-Valley,” which follows a crew of dancers at a strip club in the Mississippi Delta. Hall is currently working on Season 2 of the series, which is based on one of her plays.With theaters across the country closed during the pandemic, the Pulitzer committee made some adjustments to its qualifications: Finalists were allowed to include works that were performed virtually or those that were canceled or postponed during the pandemic. “The Hot Wing King” opened at the beginning of March 2020 but was not able to finish its run because of pandemic closures.“What’s refreshing here,” Ben Brantley wrote in his review for The New York Times, “is the matter-of-fact depiction of Black gay characters who may be dissatisfied, to varying degrees, with their own behavior but not, ultimately, because of their sexuality.”“Watching Cordell and Dwayne casually snuggle and kiss,” he went on, “draping their bodies over each other, you sense a bond in which erotic attraction has segued into something both more relaxed and more complex.”The other two finalists for the prize were “Circle Jerk,” by Michael Breslin and Patrick Foley, and “Stew,” by Zora Howard. More

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    Rezo Gabriadze, Who Created Magic Out of Puppetry, Dies at 84

    His productions, vivid and fanciful, played all over the world, including at Lincoln Center.Rezo Gabriadze, a playwright, screenwriter and director whose fanciful avant-garde stage works, many using puppets, were presented at the Lincoln Center Festival in New York and numerous other outlets as well as at the theater named for him in his home country, Georgia, died on Sunday in its capital, Tbilisi. He was 84.The Rezo Gabriadze Theater in Tbilisi confirmed his death. The cause was not given.Mr. Gabriadze was known for unconventional works that challenged the audience’s imagination. In his play “Forbidden Christmas, or the Doctor and the Patient,” for instance, which was staged at Lincoln Center in 2004 and toured the United States, Mikhail Baryshnikov, branching out into acting, portrayed a man who thought he was a car.More often, though, Mr. Gabriadze’s stage works were populated not by human performers but by puppets. Perhaps his best-known creation was “The Battle of Stalingrad,” a puppet play first staged in Dijon, France, in 1996. It examined that pivotal World War II battle, but obliquely, through individual stories. Some involved human characters, but there was also a love story between two horses, as well as an ant with a dying daughter.“Writ terribly small, with the delicacy of lacework,” Bruce Weber wrote in The New York Times, reviewing a production at the Kennedy Center in Washington in 2000, “‘The Battle of Stalingrad’ compels the audience to unusual concentration, lest the artistry be disturbed. And artistry it is, beautiful, poignant and lingering.”Perhaps Mr. Gabriadze’s best-known creation was “The Battle of Stalingrad,” a puppet play seen here at The Kennedy Center in 2000. It examined the pivotal World War II battle, but obliquely, through individual stories.Mario del Curto/’The Battle of Stalingrad’Another scene from “The Battle of Stalingrad.” It “compels the audience to unusual concentration, lest the artistry be disturbed,” wrote a Times critic. “And artistry it is, beautiful, poignant and lingering.”Vladimir Meltser“The Autumn of My Springtime,” first seen in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 2002, was a story about a bird that drew heavily on Mr. Gabriadze’s memories of his childhood. “Ramona,” seen at the Lincoln Center Festival in 2015, was a love story between two trains.These and other works were full of striking stage pictures and cleverly made, adroitly maneuvered puppets designed by Mr. Gabriadze and his expert team.“As characters either powerful or weak,” Mr. Weber wrote, “his puppets, long faced, with a clattery-boned droopiness, seemingly constructed from bird legs and seashell fragments held together with string, share a frailty that feels, well, human.”Mr. Gabriadze, who early in his career was a sculptor and then a screenwriter and film director, was most at home among his puppets.“The puppet theater is the ideal place for me because you can draw, sculpt and truly create your characters,” he told The Post & Courier of Charleston, S.C., in 2017, when he brought his two-trains-in-love story to the Spoleto Festival USA in that city. “This is the maximum of freedom you can achieve in art. I make and do everything in my theater myself. I write the plays, choose the music — I am completely free in my decision-making.”Revaz Gabriadze was born on June 29, 1936, in Kutaisi, in what was then Soviet Georgia. In a 2002 interview with The Times, he recalled having his imagination opened up after World War II when American movies began making their way to Georgia.“Our generation was ‘Tarzan-ized,’” he said. “Tarzan, feminine women, men in tuxedos; this was the first time we saw these things, and it was one part of our spiritual nourishment.”He was artistically inclined.“In my father’s family, the men worked stone,” he told Le Monde in 2003. “They built churches or bridges. There are many delicate and ancient bridges in Georgia. Maybe that’s where my first vocation came from, sculpture.”Those skills would prove useful when he began carving and constructing puppets. But other careers came first.After working for a time as a journalist, he gravitated to filmmaking, writing dozens of screenplays and directing a few movies. “I was making tragicomic films,” he said. “I was always watched by the authorities, and I lacked diplomacy.”Georgia was still under Soviet control, and it was the era of Socialist Realism in film and other genres. Realism, Mr. Gabriadze said, just wasn’t his thing.“I can understand the human urge to put things in order,” he told The Times. “But you can’t divide life between fiction and fact. ‘Tom Sawyer’ may be a novel, but it is also an encyclopedia of childhood.”In Mr. Gabriadze’s play “Forbidden Christmas, or the Doctor and the Patient,” which was staged at Lincoln Center in 2004 and toured the United States, Mikhail Baryshnikov, center, branched out into acting, portraying a man who thought he was a car.Michal DanielHe opened his puppet theater in 1981. (In 2010 it unveiled a newly renovated space designed by Mr. Gabriadze and featuring a deliberately crooked clock tower.)In the early 1990s, with Georgia embroiled in civil war, Mr. Gabriadze relocated to Moscow for several years, working at the Obraztsov State Puppet Theater, where he began to create “The Battle of Stalingrad.” The piece, he said, was in part a response to the civil war. But, like many of his works, it also drew on memories from his childhood.“I was 6 years old during the Battle of Stalingrad,” he said. “I remember the word echoing through childhood.”While taking his puppet productions all over the world, Mr. Gabriadze continued to pursue his love of art. In 2012 the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow mounted an exhibition devoted to his paintings, graphic works and sculpture.Full information on his survivors was not available. A son, Levan, produced some of his shows and, in 2018, made a film about his father’s life called simply, “Rezo.”In an interview with the travel blog Intrepid Feet First, Levan talked about his father and his work.“The thing about Rezo is that he lives in his own bubble,” he said. “We all do. But Rezo brings you into his.” More

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    Headliners and Headdresses Return to Las Vegas. Will Tourists Follow?

    The first shows to reopen face a challenge: It is hard to draw audiences without tourists, but hard to draw tourists without shows.LAS VEGAS — Penn Jillette, one half of the Penn & Teller magic and comedy act that has helped define nightlife in Las Vegas for decades, bounded onto the stage the other night and looked across a maskless but socially distanced audience scattered across the theater at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino.“We just did 421 days without a live show,” he said, referring to the forced sabbatical that stretched through the end of April, his silent partner, Teller, finally back at his side. “Boy, it’s nice to see people in the theater.”The next morning, less than a mile away, a troupe of acrobats from Cirque du Soleil was somersaulting through the air, all wearing masks, as they warmed up on a steel frame ship swinging over a 1.2 million-gallon pool in anticipation of reopening “O” in July and a second show, “Mystère,” later this month. By the end of the year they hope to have seven Cirque du Soleil shows back at full capacity.Fifteen months ago, this bustling tourist destination in the desert shut down almost overnight, as theaters, restaurants and casinos emptied out and Las Vegas confronted one of the biggest economic threats in its history. The stakes could not be higher as the Strip tries to emerge from the shadow of the pandemic and the first crop of shows face a challenging reality: It is hard to open shows without tourists, and it’s hard to draw tourist without shows.But a walk through its bustling sidewalks last week suggests an explosion of activity, befitting — in its extravagance, and this city’s appetite for risk — what has always made Las Vegas what it is. The change since last spring, as measured by the return of surging morning-to-midnight crowds, is head-snapping. While just 106,900 tourists visited Las Vegas in April 2020, according to the Convention and Visitors Authority, some 2.6 million people visited this April — a big rebound, but still almost a million shy of what the city was attracting before the pandemic.Penn & Teller recently performed for 250 people scattered around its 1,475-person auditorium. But with restrictions easing, they are increasing capacity — and plan to play to full houses by the end of summer.Joe Buglewicz for The New York Times“You’re in a town that was very irresponsible before,” Jillette said in an interview, remarking on the exuberance of the reopening. “Not the residents, but the people who come to visit Vegas. People who don’t smoke cigars, smoke cigars. People who don’t drink martinis, drink martinis. People who don’t have irresponsible sex, have irresponsible sex. They are proud of it.”Las Vegas began filling its theaters ahead of New York, where most Broadway shows will not reopen until September, and other cities, though many are now rushing to catch up. “I don’t know if culturally that’s a good thing,” Jillette said. “But I will tell you I believe we’re right this time.”The city’s tourism-powered economy was staggered during the pandemic, as Americans avoided airplanes, restaurants, theaters and crowds. Those days seem to be over.“As soon as the governor and the county said we could open, the resorts wanted us to open,” said Ross Mollison, the producer of “Absinthe,” a cabaret and adult humor show, whose website reassures guests by saying, “When you arrive at Absinthe, the Green Fairy promises you filthy fun in a spotless venue.” Penn & Teller had their first Las Vegas show in 1993, and have performed at the Rio since 2001.Joe Buglewicz for The New York TimesPenn & Teller started slowly, as they reunited an act whose first Las Vegas show began in 1993, in deference to the wishes of its performers as well as to state and local health regulations. Their first show was April 22, after both men were vaccinated. By last week 250 people were scattered around its 1,475-person auditorium as the lights dimmed one night just after 9 p.m. But with Nevada Covid-19 restrictions lifted as of June 1 by order of the governor, Steve Sisolak, the show is moving to increase capacity: It plans to sell every seat by the end of the summer, said Glenn S. Alai, its producer.They are at the front of a parade. David Copperfield is up and running, as is “Absinthe,” the Australian Bee Gees, Rich Little and a Prince tribute show. A six-show residency by Bruno Mars at Park MGM in July is sold out, and Usher, Miley Cyrus, Donny Osmond, Barry Manilow, Dave Chappelle, Garth Brooks and Bill Maher are all coming to town. Star D.J.s have been lined up by the city’s mega clubs.A dress rehearsal of “O” by Cirque du Soleil at the Bellagio Hotel & Casino. Performances begin on July 1.Joe Buglewicz for The New York TimesShow business has always been big business in Las Vegas, but it has become even more vital in the decades since the region lost its near-monopoly on legal casino gambling. Before the pandemic, there were more than 100 theaters in Las Vegas, with a combined 122,000 seats, plus 18 arenas that can hold another 400,000 people.About half of the 42 million people who come to Las Vegas in a typical year attend a show, said Steve D. Hill, the president of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. “It’s a huge draw, it’s a huge part of the city,” he said. “It’s part of what creates the energy of this place.”Ana Olivier, a designer, and her husband, Van Zyl van Vuuren, a data scientist, bought tickets to four shows when they came here from Atlanta for a week’s long vacation.“Honestly, we just want to get out of the house,” Olivier said as they waited to enter Penn & Teller.Las Vegas is marking this moment with characteristic excess: A fireworks display will light up a long stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard on Independence Day, a coordinated display (produced by Grucci, of course) choreographed off the roofs of seven casinos.Cirque du Soleil hopes to have seven shows running in Las Vegas at full capacity by the end of the year. Performers warmed up for a rehearsal.Joe Buglewicz for The New York TimesThe more cautious approach being taken by most Broadway producers reflects the differences between the two cultures. Broadway theaters tend to be older and smaller, with cramped lobbies, bars, bathrooms and seats. As a matter of pure economics, it is not feasible to socially distance and sell enough seats to cover costs.Theaters in Las Vegas are typically vast and roomy, built into sprawling casino complexes.The pressure to reopen them, from business and political leaders, was huge. Shows are powerful revenue drivers for casinos, not only from box office receipts but for the way they attract tourists and typically require customers to wander through a tempting maze of slot machines, gaming tables, restaurants and bars to find their way to the entrance of the theater.For many shows it has been a slow climb to reopening, as they navigated changing regulations and gauged the eagerness of crowds to return. “Absinthe” tried opening in October, but as it was only allowed to sell a small fraction of its 700 seats, it soon shut down again: Producers decided it was not economically feasible for a show with a large cast and crew. It reopened again in April when it was allowed to increase capacity.Cirque du Soleil performers had to be fitted for costumes and wigs that had been sitting untouched for more than a year.Joe Buglewicz for The New York TimesFor all the optimism in the air, there are still reminders that this remains a moment of uncertainty. Performers, crew members and visitors to “O” rehearsals were required to get coronavirus tests to enter the theater. Performers wore masks even as they did their midair acrobatics, or went to subterranean dressing rooms to try on costumes and wigs that had been sitting untouched for more than a year. (The mask requirement was waved for swimmers and scuba divers.)Penn & Teller have had to make adjustments. They no longer rush to the door to shake hands with fans as they leave, a tradition for 45 years. And now, when they seek volunteers from the audience to come onstage, they relegate them to a chair at the end of the stage, well away from Jillette or Teller.The rehearse-in-masks requirement was waived for one set of Cirque du Soleil performers: its swimmers.Joe Buglewicz for The New York Times“You won’t find me strolling around in a supermarket without a mask for a while,” Teller said in an interview. “I am going to stick with the most careful protocols that are around. We are dying to have people onstage. Obviously we are not going to jump into that until we are confident that is the safe thing to do.”Signs posted in casinos announce that vaccinated people do not need to wear masks, but that those who have not been vaccinated must cover their mouths — not that there are enforcers walking around the casino floors demanding C.D.C. vaccination cards. That means that “O” cast and crew walk out of the high-precaution Covid-is-still-with-us environment of their theater and into the decidedly laxer world of the rest of Las Vegas.The travel and leisure audience alone will not be enough to assure that entertainment in Las Vegas can return to what it was. The key question now is whether convention business returns after the Zoom era. Alan Feldman, a fellow at the International Gaming Institute at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said that was what he was watching most closely, although he said the rising interest in tourism was a good sign. “There is clearly pent-up demand for Las Vegas,” he said.Tourists are coming back, if not yet at pre-pandemic levels. The next question is whether the convention business will rebound after an era where remote meetings flourished.Joe Buglewicz for The New York TimesProducers, having weathered what most described as the most difficult time of their careers, are hopeful that in the weeks ahead, Las Vegas will show the world that it is safe to return to something close to business as usual.“I am very confident,” said Daniel Lamarre, the president of Cirque du Soleil. “We are selling at a pace that is double what we do normally. It indicates to me that people are just crazy to go out and see humans perform. ”Tourists make up the overwhelming majority of people who come to the Strip, but some Las Vegas area residents venture out as well. John Vornsand, a retired Clark County planner who lives in nearby Henderson, had not seen a show here since Rod Stewart performed in 2019 at Caesars Palace. He was back the other night with his wife, Karen, for Penn & Teller.“I bought the tickets the first day they were out,” said Vornsand, who is vaccinated. “I said, ‘It’s her birthday and that’s it.’”“We don’t feel uncomfortable,” he said. “Although I do have a mask in my pocket.” More

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    ‘Worlds Fair Inn’ Review: You Can Check Out Anytime You Like

    A lurid story about the serial killer H.H. Holmes gets an absurdist spin at the Axis Theater Company.What have we learned from all of those dark nights, and will anything have changed now that the lights are coming on again? These are the definitive questions of this odd moment, as theater begins its piecemeal reopening. “Worlds Fair Inn,” a new play at Axis Theater Company, offers one deflating response: nothing.At first, of course, a few differences manifest. Like the temperature check at the ticket taker’s table or the spacing between the seats in Axis’s dim, subterranean space. But “Worlds Fair Inn,” a neo-Gothic frippery that runs a brief but somehow labored 50 minutes, could have played at any time in the past two decades since Axis opened its doors.Written and directed by Randy Sharp, the artistic director of Axis, the piece takes obvious inspiration from the exploits of the serial killer H.H. Holmes, who carried out his murders in a building colloquially known as the World’s Fair Hotel. (Some of the victims were attendees of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.) The program mentions that the show is equally indebted to the exploits of the atomic scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer. That part doesn’t come through.Sharp gives Holmes’s lurid story an absurdist spin. Three men, dressed like punk-rock versions of Buster Keaton, meet on a stage crowded with whiskey bottles. One of them, Frank (Brian Barnhart), announces a plan to build a hotel to house fair attendees. The other two (George Demas and Jon McCormick) sign on as builders and accomplices. Eventually they lure a man and a woman (Edgar Oliver and Britt Genelin) to the check-in desk, murdering them and then mutilating and reanimating their corpses.Despite its historical sources, the show gives little sense of time or place — or plot or character, for that matter. The dialogue bumbles, though there are a few odd felicities, like Frank’s habit of pronouncing “fair” as “fire” and a lone, lame joke. “So you would do whatever I say even if it goes against your beliefs as a human being?” Frank asks his new colleagues. “I’m a contractor,” one says, by way of assent.This play, like many of Axis’s productions, mostly serves as a pretext for David Zeffren’s tenebrous lighting and Paul Carbonara’s ominous sound design. Though the show concerns interior spaces, “Worlds Fair Inn” never gestures to how long many of us spent inside over the past year. And those of us who want a theater that believes in diversity and equity are likely to find the show’s seemingly all-white cast discouraging. While it feels like a miracle to be allowed sit down in a theater again, program in hand and live actors onstage, that wonder ebbs.Still, what a treat to spend a little time with Oliver. He is an absolutely sui generis actor who resembles nothing so much as an Edgar Allan Poe short story made flesh. (If it matters, I once rode the B67 bus with him and his offstage manner is equally, wonderfully sepulchral.)His character isn’t onstage for very long, though the moments passed with him provide their own peculiar pleasure. Even as we hope that theater will return much more engaged and brave and dynamic and diverse, how nice to see a strange and familiar face.Worlds Fair InnThrough June 19 at the Axis Theater, Manhattan; axiscompany.org. More

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    A New Way of Looking at Vacation Rentals

    A number of home improvement shows now focus on where you stay when you’re away from home.After more than a year of staring at the walls, Americans are booking vacations again. To help them pack, home-improvement television is offering a summer lineup of shows about where to go and where to stay.TV, it seems, wants to get out of the house as much as the rest of us.Netflix is premiering “The World’s Most Amazing Vacation Rentals” on June 18, showcasing quirky and unusual spots around the globe — a Mexico City apartment building shaped like a snake, an igloo in Finland, a lighthouse in Alaska. HGTV has renewed two of its vacation shows for second seasons, both airing in June — “Renovation Island,” about a couple remodeling a rundown resort in the Bahamas, and “Vacation House Rules,” about how to fix up your vacation rental to make it more profitable.And when Magnolia Network launches digitally on July 15 as a joint venture with Discovery Inc., it will feature a lineup (available on Discovery+ and the Magnolia app) of shows aimed at rusty vacationers, giving us a refresher on what’s out there and what goes into making a vacation rental shine. Among the on-the-road offerings are “RE(Motel),” which profiles funky roadside motels; “Van Go,” a series about Brett Lewis, who turns people’s vans into tiny mobile homes; and “Inn the Works,” which follows a young innkeeper as she fixes up a retreat in Big Bear Lake, Calif.Lindsey Kurowski, the scrappy star of “Inn the Works” on Magnolia, staining wood as she and her siblings restore a resort in Big Bear Lake, Calif.Magnolia NetworkBut even as these shows whisk us to faraway places, the focus is less on the sights we can see and more on making temporary homes away from home. As we venture out as tourists again, they aim to help us experience travel through the places we book through Airbnb or other sites.“It’s likely no accident that what resonated with us were stories of travel and possibility and wanderlust,” said Allison Page, the global president of Magnolia Network, about how so many travel shows made their way onto a network led by Chip and Joanna Gaines, the darlings of HGTV.The timing for these shows is unexpectedly fortuitous. The network was supposed to launch last October, but was delayed by the pandemic, and its cable television debut, where it will replace the DIY Network, is still on hold until January 2022. Its lineup couldn’t be more on trend, offering viewers “this fantasy that feels attainable: that they could get in their car, shed this sedentary period of life and find something beautiful,” Ms. Page said.In an email, Ms. Gaines, Magnolia’s chief creative officer, said, “I know for us, these shows have served as timely reminders of what makes life so beautiful: family, adventure, and possibility. When you hear these stories and watch how they unfold, you can’t help but want to go out and create or experience something special.”Of all the shows, “The World’s Most Amazing Vacation Rentals” feels like the one made for this moment. The first episode was filmed in Bali in January 2020, set to the crowded, dynamic backdrop of a prepandemic Indonesia. But in the episodes that follow, mostly filmed after the pandemic began, the world feels strangely empty. Then again, who needs other people when you can stay in a 4,300-square-foot floating mansion in Miami, or a 6,000-square-foot lodge carved out of a cave in the Ozarks?The hosts, Luis D. Ortiz of “Million Dollar Listing,” YouTuber Megan Batoon and travel writer Jo Franco, explore a world on pause. They marvel at their destinations, yet they rarely encounter a hotelier, let alone another guest or local, in their travels. One episode features a luxury private-island resort in the Bahamas, a destination as opulent as you would expect for $15,000 a night. You get the feeling that this island isn’t the only place that’s deserted.On an episode about treehouses, the hosts of “The World’s Most Amazing Vacation Rentals” stay in one on an alpaca farm in Atlanta.Netflix“We were in these middle-of-nowhere places having the time of our lives,” said Ms. Franco, 28. And maybe that’s a good thing. Our collective anxiety about late-stage pandemic travel could lead to “a really interesting shift in the way we travel now,” she said. “We can dive into the experience, we can get more secluded, we can feel private and safe.”Unlike Anthony Bourdain, who introduced a generation of viewers to rich cultures through the street food found in teeming markets and cramped cafes, this version of travel offers a vacation centered around where you stay, not what you do. Covid restrictions may be loosening, but many travelers are still looking for shelter that’s at a safe social distance.“I think a well-designed vacation rental can offer people a lot of comfort to know that something can be safe, if they are fearing Covid,” said Ms. Batoon, 30, a designer whose YouTube videos frequently focus on do-it-yourself home-improvement projects.While “The World’s Most Amazing Vacation Rentals” is all about where to stay, shows like “Inn the Works” focus on the elbow grease involved in turning hotels into places you would actually want to visit. “Inn the Works” chronicles how Lindsey Kurowski enlists her three siblings to help her restore a historic lodge with 13 cabins near the Bear Mountain ski resort in Southern California.In the first episode, as she and her siblings discuss how to renovate the lodge, Ms. Kurowski approaches two guests as they arrive, asking for their understanding about the state of renovation. “In return, I will give you guys a discount,” she tells them. After they shrug off the construction noise and an extension cord that will run out of their room, she hugs them (the first episode was filmed pre-Covid), saying, “I’m so lucky!”The rest of the series was filmed during the pandemic, as Ms. Kurowski continued to rent cabins while a crew filmed the renovations of the four-acre property. “Maybe that isn’t my smartest idea,” Ms. Kurowski, 33, told me. “It’s not ideal to stay at a hotel that is being renovated.”Despite the mess and the pandemic, Ms. Kurowski said the hotel “has been insanely busy” over the last year, which she attributes to the stand-alone cabins that make for an ideal socially distanced destination. She has since bought a second inn, a motel in the Berkshires in Massachusetts, near where she grew up.Vacationers are looking for something different in the places they stay, and it’s not just the pandemic that is driving the shift. Instagram and home-improvement television have managed to turn even our getaways into something demanding the photogenic quality of a big reveal. Ms. Kurowski, who also produces events for corporations, sees the value of “some styling tricks” and a well-staged photo.“People are changing the way they travel, the way they book hotels, everything is different,” she said. “People want bang for their buck, they want the most amenities they can get. They want a personalized experience.”For weekly email updates on residential real estate news, sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @nytrealestate. More

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    Trevor Noah Thanks Anti-Vaxxers on Behalf of Other Countries

    “Seems generous until you remember that Biden can’t get anyone else in America to take them, right?” Noah said of the president’s plan to donate 500 million Covid-19 vaccine doses to 100 countries.Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Looking for more to watch? Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now. More

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    ‘In the Heights’ Premiere Celebrates the Neighborhood That Started It All

    As throngs of residents watched, the stars of the movie, set in Washington Heights, walked a sunny yellow carpet outside the United Palace.At the Plaza de las Americas in Washington Heights, fruit and vegetable vendors usually sell produce until dusk. But on Wednesday, it was transformed into a replica of any other block in the neighborhood. There was a mock bodega, decorated with three Dominican flags that hung from an awning, a faux fire hydrant and a plastic fruit stand. Underneath the entire set ran a yellow carpet.The reproduction served as a backdrop for the luminaries attending for the premiere of “In the Heights,” the big-screen adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes’s Tony-winning Broadway show. The sunny carpet welcomed the cast and crew back to the Upper Manhattan neighborhood where it was filmed. The premiere, which also served as opening night of the 20th Tribeca Festival, was held at the United Palace, a majestic 91-year-old theater with a projection system that, years earlier, before his success on Broadway, Miranda had helped raise money to buy and then helped install.While the actors, producers and executives streamed down the yellow carpet, pausing for pictures with photographers and interviews with the news media, the real Washington Heights whirred behind them. Waitresses at Malecon, a Dominican restaurant across the street from the plaza, peered outside the windows in between serving heaps of rice, stew chicken and beans, trying to figure out why crowds had formed in front of their restaurant on a sticky 90-degree day.Maritza Luna, left, and Eglis Suarez were among the fans waiting outside the theater for a glimpse of the stars.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesDiners at El Conde Nuevo, another Dominican restaurant across the street, stood on the corner also trying to decipher the rumpus outside. And then, Miranda — wearing a pale blue, long-sleeve chacabana, jeans and the same Nike Air Force 1s, often called Uptowns in the City, that he wore to the Broadway opening of “In the Heights” — arrived with his family, and everyone erupted in cheers.Jorge Peguero, 71, was on his way home when he stopped and became a proud member of the crowd.“I’ve lived here my whole life, and this is fantastic,” said Peguero, a resident of Washington Heights since 1969. “It’s a big deal that Tribeca chose to represent the Dominican community, and it’s the first time ever that we see anything like it.”Miranda, who still lives in Washington Heights, had hoped to premiere the movie where it is set.“All I ever wanted was this neighborhood to be proud of themselves and the way they are portrayed,” said Miranda, who was within walking distance of his home and his parent’s home. “I still walk around here with my headphones on, and everyone is just like well, Lin-Manuel is writing.”“I feel safe here,” he added.Lin-Manuel Miranda, left, who wrote the music and lyrics for “In the Heights,” and Anthony Ramos, who stars in the movie.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesMany Washington Heights residents have not yet had their encounter with Miranda in the neighborhood. Eglis Suarez, 48, was hoping to change that.“I want to see Lin,” she said. “We are so proud, this is progress for this community and for the city.”Exuberant and critically adored, “In the Heights,” directed by Jon M. Chu, is a look at the shifts that happen between first- and second-generation immigrants. The elders hope to make it out of the neighborhood they left home for, while their younger counterparts plan to stay in the neighborhood they call home. It is a story that has occurred a million times over in the area and one that Hudes, who also lives there, encountered daily while filming.“This isn’t about a hero or a protagonist, it’s about what happens when a community holds hands together and life kind of pushes those hands apart,” said Hudes, who wore large hoops and a flower-print jumpsuit. “It’s about these blocks and these living rooms where you go after school and do your homework or play bingo during a blackout, it’s all here.”Washington Heights has been home to middle- and working-class Dominicans since the 1960s. In the 1980s, the neighborhood, like many others in the city, was flooded with cocaine and crack, making it unsafe for the community. Those days are past now and some residents say it’s time to move on from a narrative in countless movies and rap songs that no longer fits the neighborhood.“I’m so proud of this movie,” said Sandra Marin Martinez, 67, a lifelong Washington Heights resident. “Who wouldn’t be? At least there’s no shooting.”“Everything is dancing, these are my people, I grew up dancing here,” she added as she waited for a glimpse of the cast walking into the theater.“In the Heights” Premiere13 PhotosView Slide Show ›Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesYudelka Rodriguez, 51, was standing with her daughter waiting for the cast to arrive. She was excited to see her hood in the movie and herself represented.“I am so emotional,” Rodriguez said as she leaned on a metal gate. “This is the most beautiful thing, to see that your barrio is involved in this; it’s the best feeling.”That feeling is something Paula Weinstein, an organizer of the Tribeca Festival (which dropped “film” from its name this year), hoped to replicate all over the city with this movie.“This is what we’ve been dreaming of — New York is back,” Weinstein said. “This is a tribute to the Dominican community, this is what is the best of New York. Every generation of immigrants start one place and move into the community, That’s what’s great about New York, that’s what we want to celebrate.”In the theater, Robert De Niro, a founder of the festival, introduced Miranda, who then introduced the rest of the cast. The energy was electric from the stage to the seats. When a title card that read “Washington Heights” appeared on the screen, the crowd whooped and applauded.When the movie’s star, Anthony Ramos, arrived, the makeshift set was surrounded by a small crowd. As he stepped out in black-and-white cheetah-print pants, with a matching shirt and jacket, gingerly placed on his shoulders, the crowd at the corner of 175th and Broadway thundered with applause and cheers.“I didn’t grow up even going to Broadway, and most New York people don’t grow up going to Broadway,” said Ramos, who is a Brooklyn native. “To tell a New York story about a community that’s so familiar and so special to people from New York is particularly special for me.” More

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    No Broadway Shows? No Problem. Walking Tours Fill a Void.

    Tim Dolan of Broadway Up Close and his crew of tour guides are back on the sidewalks, catering to a growing number of visitors.On a recent weekday morning, a cluster of 10 masked out-of-towners found themselves in the garish maw of Times Square. Tim Dolan, their tour guide, held up an iPad showing a black-and-white photograph of the area in 1900, when it was filled with horse carriages rather than jumbo LED screens. In the photo, a man is shoveling a pile of manure. “The only thing that hasn’t changed is the smell,” Dolan said with affection.Dolan calls himself “probably the only New Yorker who would ever say they love Times Square.” It’s his neighborhood, he says, even though he lives in an apartment in Hamilton Heights with his French bulldog, Belasco, named after his favorite theater.Archival images of Times Square are incorporated into the tours.Amy Lombard for The New York TimesHe’s also probably one of the few people who can tell you the story of the actor who appeared in 9,382 performances of “The Phantom of the Opera,” or precisely why there were live lions onstage at the Broadhurst Theater for 14 nights in 1921.Dolan is the founder of Broadway Up Close, whose shamrock-green-shirted tour guides have, for 11 years, led one hour-and-45-minute tours of the area between 41st and 54th Streets, from Avenue of the Americas to Eighth Avenue. They talk about the buildings, the business and backstage gossip of the Theater District — including this newspaper, which gave Times Square its name — tracking its history from Oscar Hammerstein I to “Hamilton.” Dolan is also behind one of Times Square’s latter-day landmarks and photo ops, currently stashed away: a typographical jumble of the letters of “Broadway” near a pedestrian plaza, which looks good on Instagram.Last year, when the Great White Way went dark, Dolan’s tours stopped accordingly. (At the time, they were running 10 to 12 tours a week.) The exsanguine atmosphere of the place was especially heartbreaking for him. He missed his adopted community of performers, stage hands, TKTS staff members. “Even the Naked Cowboy,” he said. “I felt like I saw literal tumbleweeds roll down 44th Street.”A pre-pandemic poster for “Sing Street,” which was supposed to start previews at the Lyceum Theater in March 2020. Amy Lombard for The New York Times“Hamilton” will resume performances on Sept. 14 at the Richard Rodgers Theater on West 46th Street.Amy Lombard for The New York TimesA poster for “MJ the Musical,” scheduled to open this winter at the Neil Simon Theater on West 52nd Street.Amy Lombard for The New York TimesBut now, with coronavirus in retreat and reopening dates appearing on theater marquees, Dolan and his Broadway Up Close tour guides are back on the sidewalks nearly every day, catering to a slowly but surely growing number of visitors.It beats giving the tours virtually, though Dolan still conducts a couple of virtual tours a week. “So much of it is reading the audience, engaging with the audience, picking up on what they’re most interested in,” Dolan said. “It’s hard to do that in a webinar.”Visitors joined Dolan for a recent “Shubert Brothers and Beyond” tour.Amy Lombard for The New York TimesGiven that the tours attract musical lovers and theater die-hards, they are also currently serving as a substitute for actual Broadway. “We would definitely be seeing a show a night,” said Carrie Mershon, a visitor from Kansas who was taking the tour. She had booked the family’s New York trip months ago, in the hopes that Broadway productions would be up and running by now. No such luck; their show tickets had been refunded. “This fills the void a little bit.”At least Dolan can be relied upon to put on a show. Befitting the location, the more over-the-top the story, the better: Know the one about a “Follies” girl who found herself riding a runaway ostrich? How about the music director who dove into a watery orchestra pit after a flash flood at “Evita”? Or the theatergoer who fell out of the window onto the marquee of the Lyceum Theater?Dolan delivers colorful anecdotes and his fact-filled soliloquies with the polished enthusiasm of a jobbing actor. He was last onstage three years ago, in a regional production of “Arsenic and Old Lace,” and said he had booked a show in Michigan before the pandemic struck.Amy Lombard for The New York TimesHe has an actor’s knack for the emotional overshare too, pointing out his ex-girlfriend in a photo of the original “Hamilton” cast. “She’s with Daveed Diggs now,” one of the younger members of the tour group said, matter-of-factly.“I am aware!” Dolan replied.He moved to the city in 2003 to train at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy. After graduation, he performed in “Altar Boyz” for two years, and then felt the pressure to get what many in the profession call a “survival job.” He’s still not a fan of the term. “I didn’t want to just get by. I wanted another job that was just as fulfilling as when I’m onstage or in an audition room.”Realizing there was a lack of good Broadway-centric walking tours, he picked up his New York City tour guide license and set out to tell strangers lesser-known stories about his favorite place in the world. He read scores of books and scoured the photo archives of the Museum of the City of New York and New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Most enjoyable, he relentlessly picked the brains of other industry professionals.The Broadway Up Close kiosk in Times Square.Amy Lombard for The New York TimesIf anything, he had to rein in his passions: The original version of the tour covered all 40 Broadway theaters open at the time, and was seven-and-a-half hours long. Eventually, Dolan divided it into three separate tours, later adding a historical Alexander Hamilton tour and one on Broadway ghost stories, plus an interior tour of the Hudson Theater that’s currently on pause.Dolan’s eyes light up when describing the very earliest days of Times Square, a time when, for example, you might visit a recreation of a Dutch farm, replete with sheep and windmill, on a 42nd Street rooftop. Perhaps more surprisingly, Dolan is a defender of the 21st-century incarnation of the place. “We lament the loss of the old, while loving the new,” he told the group while his “Shubert Brothers and Beyond” tour stopped in the spot where a beautiful French Renaissance-style theatrical complex called the Olympia used to be. (An Old Navy store is there now.)Amy Lombard for The New York Times“You can have commerce, and art, and a safe neighborhood all at the same time,” Dolan told me. “If you’re looking for the nostalgia amid the ‘Disneyification,’ you just have to know where to look. Wanting to find the old among the new is part of why I started this.”Dolan expects Broadway Up Close to be back to prepandemic levels of business later in the year. By then, he hopes, the area will start to feel like its old self again. “I don’t think it’s in September, when we just have a couple of shows open. I think it’s once we hit maybe December, and there’s a handful of shows, and there’s the yellow Playbills in a sea of people in Times Square. Maybe less masks too. I don’t think New York City will fully be reopened until that moment happens.”Tim Dolan calls himself “probably the only New Yorker who would ever say they love Times Square.”Amy Lombard for The New York TimesBefore that, Dolan has a date, on Sept. 14, with the Gershwin Theater — where “Sweeney Todd” had its premiere in 1979 and “Starlight Express” opened in 1987 — for the return of the musical “Wicked.”“I’ll be the grown man in the last row, crying.” More